


i don't know what path we will be shown (but I know that when I'm with you I'm at home)

by CrayolaRainbow



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Future Fic, Hugs, Introspection, Leaving Home, M/M, Panic Attacks, Returning Home, cad freaks out about his family's house not feeling like home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:01:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23207398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrayolaRainbow/pseuds/CrayolaRainbow
Summary: The Savolierwood doesn't feel like home any more to Caduceus. He's worked so hard and so long to have a chance to return, but once he does, it doesn't feel right.
Relationships: Caduceus Clay/Fjord
Comments: 6
Kudos: 160





	i don't know what path we will be shown (but I know that when I'm with you I'm at home)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CandyBooks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CandyBooks/gifts).



> Cracked this out last night. It's my first Critical Role fic! I have no idea where this came from, after 4 years of being in the fandom, I had given up on the idea of ever getting inspired for a fic!
> 
> Un-beta'd, please tell me if you see a terrible typo or tense change and I'll fix it ASAP.

It’s loud in his house in the Savalierwood.

Clarabelle laughs loudly outside with Jester and Beau. Caleb and Colton are talking about Wildmother knows what, and Caduceus is almost certain his parents are telling stories from his childhood to Nott and Yasha.

The Nein had taken the table outside for dinner, since there was no way all 13 of them would fit inside the house at once. Not that they didn’t try. Everyone had crammed into the front room, re-introducing themselves, before Beau had ushered them back outside.

The noise feels… different. Caduceus isn’t sure he likes it.

Yes, him and his siblings had spent many years yelling and running and playing, but that was different. They were just silly children who hadn’t seen truly terrible things, children who had never left the only place they had ever known.

When the food is mostly gone, Caduceus quietly grabs everyone’s plates and takes them inside to start on the dishes. He’s not sure anyone notices. They’re too busy telling stories and swapping tales.

Caduceus sets a pot of water to start boiling while he washes the dishes. The motion is not as calming as he had hoped. He looks out the window and sees his family gathered together, and it feels wrong, and he doesn’t know _why_.

He spent 8 years on his own. 8 years waiting for someone to come get him. Waiting for his family. They say silence is deafening, but it had wrapped around him like a blanket. Even after all the time he’s spent traveling with the Nein, the noise of people around him is still too much, and it doesn’t slot into the quiet Savalierwood in his head. It’s like a square peg in a round hole, scraping against the sides.

Tiny droplets fall into the dishwater and make little indentations in the soap bubbles.

Damn it all, he’s crying.

Caduceus sniffles, tries to stop the tears as best he can without getting suds all over his face before anyone can notice. All it takes is for one perceptive ear to turn and then all eyes will be on him, and _fuck_ he wishes he was alone.

Except, he doesn’t really. He wants a hug, _needs_ a hug, from someone, anyone, except, from none of them. He doesn’t want their pity, he has to be strong, they can’t think he’s weak, the hero, the one who saved his house, who heals his friends and brings them back from the dead, he can't show weakness, he gives hugs and tea and makes food and he doesn’t receive it in return, because he doesn’t need it.

Everything feels wrong here. He’d been hoping, praying, for months, _years_ that moment would be perfect. That they’d finish all of their tasks and Caduceus could come back and tend to the graveyard with his family until he joined them in the ground.

He still expects to not see anyone when he turns around, doesn’t think to make more tea than for a cup or two for himself in his mother’s tea pot out of habit.

Caduceus turns to pour the water into a cup, to steep while he finishes the last of the dishes. He startles when he sees a figure in the doorway and has to repress the urge to cast a spell. How had he not noticed the sound of footsteps behind him?

“Hey ‘Duceus, I’ve got a couple more dishes for you.”

Oh, wonderful, more work. Fuck, he can’t let him see him like this.

“Jester just finished the last of the brownies, I’m honestly surprised there were any l—” Fjord cuts himself off and tilts his head. “Caduceus, are you alright?”

“I—” Caduceus tries to stand up straighter, but he can’t. “Fjord.” His voice breaks, and the floodgates open.

He hears the clatter of stoneware as Fjord sets the dishes on the counter before rushing to Caduceus’s side. “Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay. Everything’s fine, nobody’s hurt, everything’s okay.” He pulls Caduceus into a tight hug, and Caduceus collapses against him.

“No, no, I can’t, not here, they can’t see, they can’t hear,” he says, muffled against Fjord’s neck.

“Who?”

“Any of them, all of them.”

“Okay.” Fjord pulls Caduceus up and leads him to the back of the house, down the short hall to the bedroom he had shared with Colton growing up. Fjord closes the door behind them and locks it, before leading Caduceus to his bed.

They curl up against each other, legs tangling together. Caduceus can’t stop crying. He hiccups and sobs against Fjord’s solid chest.

“Sh sh sh,” Fjord croons and presses kisses to his forehead and the top of his head. “Everything will be alright.” He strokes Caduceus’s hair.

Caduceus sniffles. “But it _isn’t_ , and that’s a problem.”

“What do you mean?”

“Everything is supposed to be perfect right now. We stopped the corruption in the forest and in the Empire, everyone’s done with their journeys, and I’m supposed to come home. But this doesn’t feel like home any more. It’s so loud and full of life with the Nein here. And when they leave, it will just go back to the way things were before my mother and my aunt left. I spent 10 years on my own as the forest died around me and everything became quiet, and I don’t want that to happen again. I just want to go home, but home isn’t here anymore. Home is with the Mighty Nein, with _you_. Home is loud and messy and bigger than a little house in the woods with my parents and my siblings and my aunt until I die.”

“Deuces, it doesn’t have to be like that if you don’t want it to,” Fjord says softly.

“But I don’t feel right, asking you to stay here.”

Fjord pauses and pulls away slightly. He tilts Caduceus’s head up slightly to look him in the eye. “Darling, who said anything about you having to stay here? There are other temples to the Wildmother, or we could start our own. We don’t have to stay here if you don’t _want_ to. You’ve done plenty for Her, you can take a break. Do you really want to stay here?”

“No,” Caduceus mumbles.

“Then you don’t have to stay here. We can set up shop along the Menagerie Coast, spend time with Jester and Beau and Veth and her family, and Caleb can teleport himself and Yasha and the rest of our friends to a circle near us whenever he wants. Does that sound like something you might want?”

Caduceus pauses to imagine it. A home along the coast, with a huge garden and beehives. A shrine to the Wildmother nearby that travelers could worship at. Room for all their friends to come and stay with them. A dock, so Fjord could enjoy the ocean without having to fear anything trying to hurt him. A day or so’s ride from Nicodranis so they can see their friends without having to camp in between.

“Yeah, yeah I think it is,” he rumbles.

Fjord presses a soft kiss to his lips. “Then let’s do that.”

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr @the-emerald7!


End file.
